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Recognition, Naming and Bare Particulars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

John Trentman
John Trentman
Affiliation:
Huron College University of Western Ontario
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Extract

In a recent discussion of the notion of substance Miss Anscombe points out that the following three doctrines are very closely associated: the doctrine that proper names lack all connotation, are mere labels, the view that there is nothing essential to the individual, and the doctrine that individuals are bare particulars with no properties in and of themselves. In this article as well as in other writings she rejects all three of these doctrines. And, along with P. T. Geach, whose position on this matter I take to be identical to hers, she defends a doctrine of proper names that is based upon this rejection. She is quite right in supposing that the notion of individuality embodied in these three doctrines is not a straw man. E. B. Allaire has recently defended the doctrine that there are bare particulars along with its corollaries about names and the nominal essence of individuals. He even thinks the doctrine can be defended on “common sense” grounds, independently of dialectical considerations. In this paper I wish to examine one of his arguments in defence of bare particulars.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 1966 , pp. 19 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1966

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References

1 Anscombe, G. E. M., “Substance, I”, The Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XXXVIII (1964), p. 70Google Scholar.

2 Allaire, Edwin B. et al, Essays in Ontology (Iowa City, 1963), p. 79Google Scholar.

3 Cf. Moore's, G. E. note in Some Main Problems of Philosophy (Collier, New York, 1962), p. 93Google Scholar, that what Russell had called “knowledge by acquaintance” had no right to be called either “knowledge” or “acquaintance”.

4 Cf. Bergmann, Gustav, Logic and Reality (Madison, 1964), p. 174Google Scholar.

6 See Bouwsma, O. K., Philosophical Essays (Lincoln, 1965), pp. 187 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 loc. cit.

7 Anscombe, G. E. M. and Geach, P. T., Three Philosophers (Oxford, 1961) p. 8Google Scholar.

8 Geach, P. T., Reference and Generality (Ithaca, 1962), pp. 43–44Google Scholar.

9 “Substance, II”, The Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XXXVIII (1964), p. 81Google Scholar.

10 Reference and Generality, p. 44.

11 Robinson, William S. has discussed this sort of difficulty with Geach's view of identification in “Judgments Involving Identification”, Analysis, XXIV, No. 6 (June 1964), 206–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.